I decided to read Tycoon by Katy Evans, because (a) I really liked the only book I've read before by this author, Mr President, (see my revie2,5 stars

I decided to read Tycoon by Katy Evans, because (a) I really liked the only book I've read before by this author, Mr President, (see my review here.... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ) (b) I love Greek heroes!!!! and (c) yes, I liked the cover!!!

This was like an okay read for me. There were just too many things that didn't work for me.

The plot has been done so many times before.....friends to lovers, second chance at love, cold and unfeeling billionaire hero who melts when he falls in love....and so on....I don't have a problem with this kind of plot, but somehow there was something that didn't get me engaged with the story.

The hero -Aaric Christos (hell, his name totally "disturbed" me.....I know millions of Greeks but have never met an Aaric...okay, maybe his parents just loved that name...however, what the hell is the man called...Aaric or Christos...........the heroine and the other characters call him Aaric and in the next paragraph....it's Christos!!!). Not letting that little name peeve get to me, I actually liked the guy. He wasn't this uber alpha a@#$%%^e.....he had a heart. I also liked honesty and the way he dealt with the people in his life.

The heroine - Bryn aka Bit Kelly.....former rich girl who lost her parents and her money now needs the help of her former school friend...who had been poor and beneath her social standards then and is now rich and has the money she needs to start up her company. There were some parts I liked with Bryn...like when she walks the dogs to make money...hell, things are bad in NYC....for a girl without money. The part when she promises to take the homeless woman for dinner if she gets the finance for her company...........But on the whole???? I'm not sure I liked her........the interaction with her best friend and roommate was so juvenile and immature...in fact both of them were beyond immature!!!I wasn't too bothered by her chasing Aaric aka Christos, even though he had a girlfriend........hell, girlfriends...all is fair in love and war!!!!

The plot -The first 50% of the story was a bit slow...dragged on and on.....

The characters -Couldn't really connect with any of them....okay, maybe Aaric aka Christos (you see what I mean about his name!!!!)There was something about him that pulled me in!!!

The Fix is the 3rd book in the Amos Decker series by David Baldacci. Amos Decker and his team are faced with a baffling new case. Walking past the FBIThe Fix is the 3rd book in the Amos Decker series by David Baldacci. Amos Decker and his team are faced with a baffling new case. Walking past the FBI's Hoover Building, Decker witnesses a man shooting a woman dead right in front of the building's entrance before killing himself.

Investigations seem to be leading nowhere...at first, there seems to be no connection between the two people but soon Decker, with his memory talents, discovers a plot filled with betrayals, family secrets and a lot more than span over a lifetime.

The story did start becoming a bit slow and drawn out towards the middle but it draws to the most unexpected and shocking ending that made it worthwhile finishing.

I love Hollywood love stories!!! I know....GROUPIE!!! Which girl hasn't dreamt about meeting a famous and gorgeous movie star who falls in love with hI love Hollywood love stories!!! I know....GROUPIE!!! Which girl hasn't dreamt about meeting a famous and gorgeous movie star who falls in love with her and they live HEA.....oh hell....I'm one of those girls!!!! So, it goes without saying that the story of a famous movie star falling in love with his daughter's nanny was just up my "alley"!!!!

I enjoyed the plot and the writing.]

The characters are likeable and engaging....especially the movie star's little daughter......she's totally adorable.

Some might say that it's a bit unbelievable....Hollywood stars are mostly not so nice....etc etc...but, hey, this is fiction where anything is possible!!!

This was such a sweet and enjoyable read - if you like Hollywood HEA.....then this book is for you!I noticed that this is the 1st book in the Hollywood A-List Series............so, some more Hollywood HEA................more

Shadow's Claim is the 13th book in Kresley Cole's ever fabulous Immortals After Dark Series and the 1st in her The Dacians Series ...

Okay, so I am notShadow's Claim is the 13th book in Kresley Cole's ever fabulous Immortals After Dark Series and the 1st in her The Dacians Series ...

Okay, so I am not sure why this book is part of the IAD Series......the only connection to that world is that the main character here , is one of Lothaire's many cousins, the assassin Trehan Daciano who made a very quick appearance at the end of Lothaire's book

Trehan is also the prince of the secret Vampire Realm Dacia, situated in the hell-plane of Abbaddon. He's been assigned to assassinate the realm's Princess Bettina's best friend who she just also happens to be in love with........blah blah blah!!!

Of course, when Trehan and Bettina lay eyes on each other. INSTANT LUST...ooh and then he discovers that she's actually his Bride...but she says no no no......PLEAZZZZZZZ!

I did like Trehan but Bettina not so much! In fact she was a pain in the butt for most of the story!!

I also had to stop a few times ....to think where does this story fit into the actual IAD Series!!

I struggled to finish this one.......there were a few times that I almost gave up...and the only reason I turned the last page was that I kept thinkinI struggled to finish this one.......there were a few times that I almost gave up...and the only reason I turned the last page was that I kept thinking it would get better.

There was something missing between the two mc's....I never felt a chemistry or connection there.

I love the IAD Series but I am not sure about The Dacians.

However, I do love KC so I am not giving up on the Immortals now!!...more

I struggled to get into the 5th book in the series, Dreaming of the Bones.

Victoria McClellan, Duncan's ex-wife, has remarried and has a son. Now liviI struggled to get into the 5th book in the series, Dreaming of the Bones.

Victoria McClellan, Duncan's ex-wife, has remarried and has a son. Now living in Cambridge, she's writing a biography of Lydia Brooke, a Cambridge poet whose death five years earlier was ruled as suicide. But reading her poetry and letters, Victoria believes that she didn't kill herself but may have been murdered.

She asks Duncan Kincaid to look into the poet's death. At first he's not convinced about the allegations and also Gemma, his partner both professionally and personally is not too happy about his involvement with his ex-wife, who had treated him rather shabbily 12 years ago.

But Victoria's findings seem to have some cause for him to look into the case. And when Victoria is murdered in her home, he's not only devastated but determined to bringing her killer to justice.

The investigation leads to the Cambridge literary world of the 60's and Lydia's circle of friends then. These were the characters I just couldn't engage with. They were so fickle and vacant, so self-absorbed. I couldn't find anything about them that could redeem them. In fact, they could have all been bumped off and I wouldn't give a toss...

I just wanted to get to the end to find out who the killer/s were and turn the last page.

The only redeeming factor in this story as seeing the growing relationship between Kincaid and Gemma and her son Toby. I am also keen to discovering more about Victoria's son, Kit....more

In the 4th book, Mourn Not Your Dead, Sergeant Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid are asked to help with the investigation of the3,5 stars

In the 4th book, Mourn Not Your Dead, Sergeant Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid are asked to help with the investigation of the murder of a high ranking police officer, Alastair Gilbert, at his home in Holmbury St Mary, who is disliked intensely by everyone in the village.

The life in the tiny village is very well depicted and the characters are so well-drawn..from the widow, Claire Gilbert and her daughter, Lucy to the locals - the local doctor, vicar, the pub keeper and his kleptomaniac son and even the local and likeable psychic. Of course, the outcome of the investigation was a total surprise.

In between travelling from London to the village, Kincaid and Gemma are trying to come to terms with the development in their relationship, which moved in a new direction when the two slept together at the end of the last book, Leave the Grave Green.

An enjoyable mystery filled with suspense and loads of twists and turns and many unexpected surprises....more

Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant Gemma Jones are back in Leave the Grave Green, the 3rd book Deborah Crombie's Series.

InveScotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant Gemma Jones are back in Leave the Grave Green, the 3rd book Deborah Crombie's Series.

Investigating the suspicious drowning of the son-in-law of Sir Gerald and Dame Caroline Asherton, renowned figures in the music world, they discover that the family secrets of the past are linked to the murder.

The Asherton family, which includes their daughter, a famous painter, are a very strange lot. The parents seem to have favoured their son, who tragically drowned twenty years before, to Julia.

I so enjoy seeing Kincaid and Gemma follow the clues to solving the mystery. Kincaid uses his friendly manner to the hilt...intelligent and appealing but sometimes he loses sight of his objectives...in fact, I was a bit puzzled about the reason for the author to write a scene that I felt was a bit weird...(view spoiler)[Kincaid actually has a one night stand with Julia Asherton...okay, so he's attracted to her...the reason why I cannot understand...she's cold, unemotional, unfeeling...why would he want to sleep with he...but worst of all........when the relationship between him and Gemma seems to be going somewhere.......flip, I would give the guy a kick in the butt!!! (hide spoiler)]

Great character development. I am getting to know the two main characters more and enjoy not only seeing them at work but at home as well.

I discovered this series by chance and I am so happy to have found yet another British mystery/thriller/police procedural series - yes, I have spent tI discovered this series by chance and I am so happy to have found yet another British mystery/thriller/police procedural series - yes, I have spent the last month or two totally immersed in this genre.

All Shall be Well, the 2nd book in Deborah Crombie's Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James Series is even better than the 1st, All Shall Be Well.

Something about Scotland Yard Supt. Duncan Kincaid's friend and neighbour's apparent suicide makes him feel uneasy and when a post-mortem reveals an overdose of morphine, he and his sergeant, Gemma James begin an investigation into the possibility that someone may have a motive to murder Jasmine Dent.

There are a lot of suspects - Jasmine's weak and useless brother, Theo, her downstairs neighbour, Major Keith, who served in the army in India where she had lived. The home nurse, Felicity Howarth, her friend Meg and her horrible boyfriend, Roger Leveson-Gower - all seem to have some ulterior motive for Jasmine's untimely death.

Following clues and the entries in Jasmine's journal, Kincaid and Gemma uncover a reason for the murder that they never expected.

The more I get to know the two main characters, the more I like them. I am beginning to get a feel for the characters - who they are and what makes them "tick."

I just have this "feel" that I am going to love this series the more I get into it....more

A Share in Death is the 1st novel in the series, which currently contains 16 books. I do feel that the books are best read in order.

Kincaid is on long-earned vacation at a Yorkshire time-share but his holiday is anything but relaxing. Within a few hours of his arrival, bodies start piling up both staff and guests.

Helping the local police, Kincaid uses his experience and charm to discover who the killer is before more people are murdered.

At times, this felt like an Agatha Christie book......Kincaid a modern and good looking Poirot, using his "grey" cells to solving the mystery by cracking the clues he finds. The characters are so quintessentially British...I really liked that.

I enjoyed the connection and interaction between Kincaid and James and I can't wait to finding out more about these two's history.

The feel of "place"...here in the Yorkshire moors, was vividly written that I almost felt I was part of the story.

Karen Robards's latest book, The Ultimatum, which looks like the 1st book in The Guardian Series was one of the most excruciating books I have read byKaren Robards's latest book, The Ultimatum, which looks like the 1st book in The Guardian Series was one of the most excruciating books I have read by this author.

I had such high hopes after reading Chapter 1......the story started with a bang.......it certainly got my attention.........I couldn't wait to turn to the next chapter!!!

And what happened after turning the 1st page of Chapter 2?? Nothing!!! What follows are loooong and repetitive scenes after scenes. Nothing made any sense...not the characters...not the story......

By page 200.......the plot just "plodded" along!!! I was still not sure where the story was going........

I am not sure what the plot was suppose to be.........okay, the mc, heroine, Bianca St Ives, is pretty awesome..in the beginning...but how many times did I have to be told what she has hidden in her garter!!!! Is this a romantic suspense...well, romance...was there any...maybe I missed it...suspense.......think I missed that too!!!! Thriller...okay, lots of bad guys, killers and kidnappers, etc etc........oh man.........even the cliff-hanger at the very end of the book didn't make me want to continue the story, which I presume is book #2........

So, final thoughts about this story!!!!!Let the face tell you what they are....

Oh yes, why the 1,5 stars???? Because the only character I liked was Bianca St Ives!!!!...more

I had hopes of continuing the "high" after reading Tana French's previous book, Broken Harbor, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... which I really liked...but sadly no......The Secret Place, 5th in her Dublin Murder Squad Series...was a total not hit but a total MISS...

This was a cold case....the Murder Square had not been able to solve the murder of a boy, whose body had been found in the grounds of an all girl's private school.A year later, new evidence comes up in the form of a card with the boy's foto and message "I know who killed him."

Detective Stephen Moran from Cold Cases teams up with Dublin Murder Squad's Detective Antoinette Conway to open up the investigation again.

Despite me liking Tana French's writing and the two main characters, I just could not get into this book.

Slow, tedious and far too many flashbacks....and far too much information and descriptions that felt had no added value to the story.

I mentioned before that I liked Detective Stephen Moran and Detective Antoinette Conway...but the rest of the sooooooooo toooooooooo many characters were beyond boring and irritating...

“Alison’s mum has had a lot of plastic surgery and she wears fake eyelashes the size of hairbrushes. She looks sort of like a person but not really, like someone explained to aliens what a person is and they did their best to make one of their own.”

After a while, reading more and more about the annoying and empty schoolgirls...I was like..... .I don't give a toss who killed the boy...in fact, kill all the girls as well.... just kidding!!! But most if not all of them were so on the surface...

“ “If I've learned one thing today, it's that teenage girls make Moriarty look like a babe in the woods."

After playing a minor role in Faithful Place, Mike 'Scorcher' Kennedy is able to steal the spotlight and prove readers why he is the Squad's star deteAfter playing a minor role in Faithful Place, Mike 'Scorcher' Kennedy is able to steal the spotlight and prove readers why he is the Squad's star detective. Assigned to work with, Kennedy picks up a brutal assault/murder over in Brianstown, colloquially known as Broken Harbour.

In Broken Harbour, Tana French's 4th novel in her Dublin Murder Squad Series, Mike ("Scorcher") Kennedy, who played a minor role in the previous book, Faithful Place, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... has been assigned a new partner, rookie Detective Richie Curran and given a new case to solve.

Patrick & Jenny Spain and their two small children had been brutally attacked in their home, in a decaying and unfinished housing development in Brianstown, formerly known as Broken Harbor, just outside Dublin The husband had been stabbed to death and the two children suffocated whilst the wife left barely alive.

There are two storylines - the present murder and the connection to Sorcher. It was the place that he use to spend his family holidays in the past and where his mother had committed suicide when he was a teenager.

Kennedy is a complex and complicated character. At first, I just couldn't connect with this guy. But as the story develops, you get to see under his "skin"....how his childhood shaped the person he became.

“It doesn't matter where you come from. There's nothing you can do about it, so don't waste your energy thinking about it. What matters is where you're going. And that, mate, is something you can control.”

You see his dedication and loyalty to his family, especially his mentally ill sister,. and the strong work ethics and sense of duty he has. He's a by-the-books detective and for him there is no such thing as the colour grey...it's black and white and he makes sure that his rookie partner knows that from the beginning...

“If you think you’re a success, you will be a success; if you think you deserve nothing but crap, you’ll get nothing but crap. Your inner reality shapes your outer one, every day of your life.”

Kennedy, as mentor to the rookie, is a things are black and white detective trying to educate Richie on his personal rules of investigation and interrogation.

by the end of the book, I actually liked him....felt as if I knew him really well...well, I thought I did until the author surprises me with a twisty cliff-hanger!!!

This is a character driven story, where the police procedures, the forensics, the investigation helps the character development. It's a story of family relationships, the yearning to belong.

“ “I remember this country back when I was growing up. We went to church, we ate family suppers around the table, and it would never even have crossed a kid’s mind to tell an adult to fuck off. There was plenty of bad there, I don’t forget that, but we all knew exactly where we stood and we didn’t break the rules lightly. If that sounds like small stuff to you, if it sounds boring or old-fashioned or uncool, think about this: people smiled at strangers, people said hello to neighbours, people left their doors unlocked and helped old women with their shopping bags, and the murder rate was scraping zero.”

A deep exploration of human emotions, loss, sadness, madness, fate..... set in a place that fits in with the crime and mystery....Brianstown is not a pretty place...it is isolated, bleak, barren, desolate where the wind blows relentlessly over the town and roiling waves that crash into the sand.

There is no sunshine or light here....the resolution to the murder mystery is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.

After the disappointment in her previous book, Faithful Place, I was unsure if I wanted to continue with the series...but I am glad I did....because this was really a good addition.

And after 4 books, I have reached this conclusion.......Tana French's writing is absolutely brilliant....

“I have always been caught by the pull of the unremarkable, by the easily missed, infinitely nourishing beauty of the mundane.”

Her prose is brilliant, evocative and her characters and place are so vividly descriptive.

Earthly Remains, the 26th novel in Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti Series, was a bit of a disappointment.

I have been a fan of this series sin Earthly Remains, the 26th novel in Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti Series, was a bit of a disappointment.

I have been a fan of this series since I read the 1st book years ago and Commissario Guido Brunetti has become one of my favorite book characters and of course the way that the author portrays the everyday life of Venice.

The story starts off really slow...nothing really happens for the first 100 or so pages. Brunetti has taken leave and is staying at his wife's family villa in one of the many islands in the laguna. He spends his days eating, sleeping, reading and rowing.

Davide Casati, the caretaker of the villa, who also happens to have been a rowing friend of Brunetti's father goes missing during a storm. His body is recovered and it becomes apparent that there is something sinister what seems like he had committed suicide.

Brunetti then spends his supposedly rest time trying to find out the mystery of his friend's death.

Corruption, poisoning of the Venice waters, secrets and of course Brunetti's quest for finding the truth and justice for the crimes committed.

The ending was so abrupt - I was left thinking...........is that it!!!!

I think I may just take a break from this series. The last two or three books have lacked the lustre I found in the start of the series.

However, if you are a fan of this series, then I suppose you should read this one....more

Snapped is the 4th book in Laura Griffin's Tracers Series and so far the one I have liked the most.

I've always had a soft spot for Sophie Barrett sincSnapped is the 4th book in Laura Griffin's Tracers Series and so far the one I have liked the most.

I've always had a soft spot for Sophie Barrett since she was introduced in Untraceable, the 1st book in the series. She's gorgeous, likeable and kicks ass....love the small gun she carries around when she goes off to one of her singing gigs.

In the previous book, Unforgivable, was the set up for Sophie's book and we know that, after the sizzling chemistry between her and the San Marcos detective, Jonah Macon, that these two would be the main characters for the next book.

The story starts off with a "bang" right from the first chapter. A sniper kills people randomly in a college campus. The scenes involving the senseless carnage is filled with tension and suspense.

It soon becomes apparent that the killings were not random and Sophie is in danger from unknown killers who believe she knows more than she actually does. And Jonah Macon goes all full out to keep Sophie safe.

I liked these two together. They have some really humorous and tender moments.....Sophie is an absolutely fabulous heroine....she's funny, independent, vulnerable, strong with some really good lines....

“I showered, shaved my legs, put on makeup, and returned two text messages in the time it took you to snoop around my kitchen. I’d say that’s pretty good.”

Great dialogue.

A good balance between romance, action and suspense, keeping you guessing who the baddies are until almost at the end.

Characters from previous books make an appearance and we are introduced to some interesting new ones....I wonder if the two characters, Gretchen and Sean will be paired off in future books.